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Kosmos Energy Ltd. (KOS)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Mon, May 4, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Kosmos Energy’s First Quarter 2015 Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, let me turn the call over to Mr. Neal Sahah, Vice President of Finance and Treasurer at Kosmos Energy. Please go ahead.

Neal Sahah

Management

Thank you, operator, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. This morning, we issued our first quarter earnings release, which is available on the Investors page of the kosmosenergy.com website, we have also published a presentation this morning giving an update on our Mauritania exploration program which available on the kosmosenergy.com website as well and we anticipate filing our 10-Q with the SEC later today. Joining me on the call today are Andy Inglis, Chairman and CEO; Tom Chambers, Chief Financial Officer and Brian Maxted Chief Exploration Officer . Following our prepared comments, we will have a question-and-answer session. Consistent with prior calls, I request that you only ask one primary question and one follow-up question. This will help ensure we get to everyone on the call. If there are questions that we aren’t able to get to within our one hour minute timeframe, please contact me later today. Before we get started, I would like to mention that this conference call includes certain forward-looking statements based under current expectations. The risk associated with forward-looking statements have been outlined in the earnings release and in our SEC filings. We may also refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures in our discussion. Management believes such measures are important in looking at the Company's historical and future performance, and these are commonly referred to industry metrics. These measures are provided in addition to, and should be read in conjunction with the information contained in our financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP and included in our SEC filings. At this time, I’ll turn the call over to Andy.

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Thanks Neal and good morning every one. This quarter months has started as an exciting period for the company. I Joined Kosmos a little over a year ago and since then we've made great progress n delivering our second inning. We started with strengthening the balance sheet to prepare for exploration success, we have done that and now sit in a great financial position, we then strengthened the management team and streamlined the organization, we now have the people we need to execute our plan. Lastly we've delivered on the exploration front. As noted in last week’s announcement, we made a significant discovery and even more important have opened a new hydrocarbon province. Kosmos’ all the pieces implies to continue creating value for our shareholders and I’m excited about the company’s future prospects. As I go through my remarks today, there are three messages I want to emphasize. First, our world-class Ghana assets are progressing as expected and remain on track to double gross production by 2017. Second is significance of our recent Tortue West discovery and third Kosmos’ strong financial position and ability to invest throughout the cycle. First in Ghana, we saw consistently strong oil production in the first quarter with average gross production from Jubilee of over 103,000 barrels of oil per day. This led to Kosmos’ lifting two cargos in the quarter. We also saw increased gas exports by end of the quarter exporting approximately 75 million cubic feet of gas per day to the onshore gas processing plant in Atuabo. The power plant downstream in Aboadze continues to the bottleneck on additional export, we expect the insulation of additional gas by power generation is number one and in the second half of the year will elevate this issue. This should enable us to further increase…

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

Thank you, Andy. Good morning everyone. Financial performance for the first quarter was strong and as Andy just indicated, the company acted proactively to strengthen our balance sheet to prepare for future success. We finished the quarter with two crude oil liftings generating revenues of $109 million for the quarter. This excludes derivative settlements of $51 million over the quarter. When you add our revenue to our settled hedges, it reflects a realized price of approximately $84 or $0.47 per barrel. For the quarter, we generated a net loss of $79 million or $0.21 per diluted share driven largely by exploration expense related to the CB-1 well, adjusting for the impact of realized and unrealized commodity derivatives, the company generated a net loss of $67 million or $0.18 per diluted share for the quarter. On the cost side, operating expense in the first quarter was $32 million or $16.90 per barrel sold versus $16 million in the first quarter of 2014. This was higher than our annual guidance due to the timing of work over activity in the Jubilee field. All planned activity for 2015 was completed during the first quarter and therefore we expect OpEx to normalize over the course of 2015. Exploration expense for the quarter was $99 million included were $84 million of dry hole cost associated with the CB-1 exploration well on the Al Khayr prospect, cost related to a large 3D seismic survey in Senegal as well as ongoing seismic processing and interpretation expenditures throughout the company’s portfolio. General and administrative cost for the quarter were $39 million compared with $40 million incurred during the fourth quarter of 2014. [Indiscernible] and depreciation expense was $37 million or $19.48 per barrel of oil sold versus $23.94 per barrel sold in the first quarter of 2014. Income…

Brian F. Maxted

Management

Thanks Tom. As I make my remarks, I will be talking through the presentation provided on the website titled Mauritania Exploration Update. I’ll start with the Tortue-1 Well Objectives on Page 3. Tortue well without a doubt is a world-class discovery and the first test of the outboard petroleum system in Mauritania. The well was designed to test Tortue West, which is part of the Greater Tortue Complex as you can see depicted in the image. Pre-drill, Tortue West carried approximately a third of the estimated resource base of the Greater Tortue Complex and as Andy mentioned, the results have far exceeded our pre-drill volumetric expectations. The well importantly has also opened a new outboard Cretaceous petroleum system offshore Mauritania and Northern Senegal, which we have captured with our large contiguous 45,000 square kilometer position. With this discovery, we have also extended our track record about forming the industry and opening up frontier basins. We’ll now turn to the well results themselves on Page 4. Based on the preliminary analysis of drilling and logging results, Tortue-1 intersected a 107 meters or 351 feet of net hydrocarbon pay in two pools. A single gas pool was encountered in the Primary Lower Cenomanian objective. Importantly, we discovered excellent reservoir throughout the Lower Cenomanian with multi [indiscernible] permeability and 20% to 30% porosity. A separate zone, 19 meters or 62 feet thick was penetrated within the Secondary Upper Cenomanian target. On Page 5 you can see a cross-section on the top reservoir structure map of the trap. The trap is a combination structural stratigraphic feature with dip closure to the west and the channel pinch out to the east. Based on our preliminary analysis of the well results, which have been integrated with seismic information, we believe the resource base at Tortue West…

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Thanks Brian. I’m sure there will lots of questions on that so I think without anything else we will hand it back to the operator and open it up for the questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Edward Westlake with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead with your question.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Good morning everyone. This is Zack [indiscernible] covering for Ed, real quick here. Thanks for taking the call. Has any of the work done at Tortue indicated any oil freeze in the region especially kind of as regard to kind of Marsouin, I’m kind of thinking about what you know from Tortue now, you have gone back taking a look at the models and the results. How are you thinking about Marsouin and what changes are you making to your approach if any of there?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Hi Zack, why don’t I pass this across to Brian.

Brian F. Maxted

Management

Yes, hi Zack, before we drill to Tortue-1 the biggest uncertainty for us was actually phase and clearly it’s found gas, we see this basin which is a frontier basin which has got limited information particularly in the outboard at this point is being one that offers potential multiple source rocks, what’s interesting is that acreage to the north is bounded by an oil play in the shallow water part of Mauritania and to the south the recent can discovery which is just south of our acreage in Northern Senegal is also oil. So without question, since we are framed by oil discoveries with north and south of our acreage whilst we made a gas discovery in Tortue there clearly is a lot of potential for oil as well as gas in the space. Q –unidentified Analyst: Perfect, thanks and real quick I understand it’s still early days with Tortue and there’s a lot of work to be done there. Do you have any initial plans for monetizing that? Thank you.

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

Yes, what I would say is its early days and in terms of the composition of the fluid at Tortue, we’ve obviously done MBT’s. They are in the line of being analyzed as we speak. I think we’re probably a couple of months away from getting all the data on that but I think just in short we manage our expectations. I think you should expect that this is a low CGR gas. In terms of monetization plans, I think it’s early, I think what we do have is a resource here that’s got really good reservoir quality. I think we have high deliverable wells. We have wells that are probably low CGR there for the subsea architecture, I think, is a lot simpler as a result. So, I think, what we need to do is go forth with the appraisal plans and as Brian indicated, we have a potential well planned for the end of this year and then through into a full well program in 2016 and I think, now, the important thing now is to build a picture, build the resource base and integrate the well results into a comprehensive plan for the field, so early days.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ryan Todd with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Ryan Todd

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Thanks. Good morning gentlemen. Maybe if I could and be talk a little bit about the resource range, I realized the importance of the net to gross in the gas water contact in terms of the range, but can you talk, maybe a little bit about do you assume different recovery factors at the various net to gross range points and then maybe as a follow-up on that, you had mentioned in the start about Tortue West being about a third of the resource in the Greater Tortue Complex, but within the updated range, it seems to represent a much larger than a third portion relative to Tortue North and East. Can you talk maybe a little bit about what you assume for Tortue North and East and what the potential is there?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Yes, Ryan, it’s lots of questions there, okay.

Ryan Todd

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Sorry!

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

I think what we’ve done is set out today, I think, a relatively straightforward way to look at the resource. I think as you look at Tortue West itself, we know the 5 Tcf number, the low-end, is not setting a conservative view. We’re going down just to the gas down to where we’re taking a conservative view of the net to gross. We found 55% in the well; we’re assuming 30% in there. We’re assuming the low end of the porosity, so that’s one view of the world. And clearly we have another view, which is from what we believe is the inferred gas water contact, the porosity that we actually saw in the well and the net to gross that we saw in the well. So, those are of two bookends and I think they reflect subjectively what we have. And if you, sort of, take those bookends and take the deterministic view and you compare it to what we had pre-drill, it’s significantly above. What we haven’t done is then sort of gone on and added on to that as it were with Tortue North and Tortue East. We’ve retained same numbers as we had originally. So, the increment you can see is a result of the increment that we’ve seen in Tortue West. So, I think it’s important to remember that this is the first well. We’ve literally just got the well result and what we’re trying to give you, I think, is a credible range of resources based on a credible set of assumptions.

Ryan Todd

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Okay, that makes sense. So, at this point, the resource estimates therefore Tortue East and North are the same as what they were on pre-drill application.

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Yes, absolutely.

Ryan Todd

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Okay.

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Which is, again is a sort of sensible place to stand at this point.

Ryan Todd

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Great that’s very helpful, and then maybe I mean you mentioned the Mauritania Senegal relationship at this point. I guess, can you talk a little bit about prior history of unitizations, maybe how you think politically, how it’ll play out when it comes to eventual development?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Yes, Brian and I visited both presidents, actually in the last week and so sort of have a first-hand knowledge, I think, of how they would see it. I think, the first thing to say is that the countries have a history of working together. In fact, the recent Banda project, which was a small gas field in Mauritania was going to be developed and actually power sold to both Senegal and Mali. So it illustrates the ability for two countries to cooperate particularly in the energy sector. And the working relationship between the NLC is strong and between the ministries. So I think that an important thing and they have a track record with things such as Banda. I think also on the Senegal side, they have a history of working cross border issues with Guinea Bissau, they haven’t demonstrated analog which sort of creates a joint development area and then that’s how that cross border issue was dealt with. So it’s an issue to manage, I think the compensation is we’ve had to date, I think signaled that that issue can be managed in a very practical way and clearly from both countries perspective, what they want is to see the development move forward and this is not an acumen on the country, this would be absolutely the top priority. So that is what gives me confidence that this thing can be done in a sensible way and there is the history and the analogs that they can roll on.

Ryan Todd

Analyst · Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Great, thanks. I appreciate the detail. I’ll leave it there.

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Thanks, Ryan.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Herrlin with Societe Generale. Please go ahead with your question.

John P. Herrlin

Analyst · Societe Generale. Please go ahead with your question.

Hi, Thanks. Going forward, once you delineate Tortue better, is this the kind of gas where you could just bring it to shore or you have to go up to shallow or depths with the idea of an LNG type project, have you given any thought?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

John, again, good question. Look, again, early days all right. But if you would look at it today John, and again we haven’t got the MDTs back, so we don’t have a CGR, our expectation is that we have a relatively low CGR which from a fluid assurance perspective makes it an easier fluid to handle. So obviously one of the things we’re thinking about today is that, yeah, you could flow it right now. It’s too early to be able to tell you whether that would be the development comes that but it’s clearly one of the things that on our mind as it is with yours. So I think let’s get the MDT back and let’s actually get the fluid properly characterize and then we can work itbut it certainly, it would make the development a lot easier because you can - you have a very simple subsurface architecture as a result.

John P. Herrlin

Analyst · Societe Generale. Please go ahead with your question.

Sure, Thanks. With you DSTs, some of the subsequent delineation wells or A1 DST?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

I think, again, among since inception, we would obviously want to establish connectivity could be that couple of ways with the DST with price attached. And clearly you probably want to get a better view of the CGL. So those are ways in which we could do that. That’s something that we need to think about in the future, John. But I think, our view today is we have a relatively simple structure that requires whether the appraisal could be relatively straight forward. I think we want to make sure, we capture the data we need from each well, given that each well - I don’t think there will be a large number of wells.

John P. Herrlin

Analyst · Societe Generale. Please go ahead with your question.

Okay. Last one for me. Are you going to basically re-process all the seismic now that you have now this track column delineating?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

That’s right.

Brian F. Maxted

Management

Hey, John.

John P. Herrlin

Analyst · Societe Generale. Please go ahead with your question.

Hey Brian.

Brian F. Maxted

Management

The Mauritania survey which is proprietary obviously is fully processed. We have that is in place all are various attributes, the fast track, the Senegal 3D is still in the process of being processed and actually we only have the fast track deliverables at the moment and the rest of it will be through later in the year. And that 3D survey will be integrated with Mauritania 3D surveys as that we effectively a single data set to work with. But there are obviously both state-of-the-art 3D surveys, the geology behaves extremely well and that’s the reason for the very good top calibration that we see with the well results. So very, very excited by what we’re seeing on the 3D. I think on that Slide 8 just to make sure you’re clear Tano basin is at the same scale shown on that slide and I think it’s important for the market to understand the scale of this position and we’re just looking at that kind of one little polygon, one big polygon at the border with Mauritania and Senegal but there is a lot of other opportunity around here particularly in Northern Senegal where the definition at the moment is only based on the existing 2D seismic. So we would expect to see prospect activity enhanced as we interpret new seismic. So it is interesting times for us.

John P. Herrlin

Analyst · Societe Generale. Please go ahead with your question.

Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question. Our next question comes from the line of Al Stanton with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Al Stanton

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question. Our next question comes from the line of Al Stanton with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes good afternoon guys. I just wanted to go a little bit back to the beginning and just ask about why Tortue was picked, was it just the biggest structure with the brightest anomaly unfortunately in the deepest water and then what you get from here I appreciate you want to appraise this discovery but it is fair spectrum of maybe seismic anomalies where actually pledged once since the gas brackets and then look at other ones which perhaps might be more indicative of oil and high put them at hierarchy because ultimately I still think you would still rather have oil than gas?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Thanks Al, why don’t I let add Brian just chat about the exploration strategy, the approach that why Tortue first and then move forward from that.

Brian F. Maxted

Management

Yes it’s important that the context for the selection of the first well was this, we have the Mauritania for three years, we shot that 3D, it is fully processed, the prospectivity at this stage of the exploration program is defined and Tortue clearly was one of the lead prospects there. We also had Senegal and we were not in the process of forming out Senegal, we only acquired that last August. As I mentioned earlier, the 3D hadn’t been acquired and hasn’t been processed yet. But what we understood was that pudding a well into Tortue was going to help us derisk not just Mauritania but also give us the calibration to evaluate the 7000 square kilometers of 3D in Senegal and so it was deliberately chosen as the prospect that was somewhat centralized. So the two positions which obviously as we now go forward with the exploration strategy, we got to integrate as we get the full data sets combined together. So that is why its chosen. The issue of bright spots, now it’s - as the industry has been shown over the last few years, it was shown in the Gulf of Mexico many years ago, bright spot exploration are actually quite dangerous because it was pretty good at demonstration to presence of hydrocarbons and to give you technical success, it’s lousy at demonstrating commercial scale reservoirs, we have this issue ourselves in [Indiscernible] and so the out petroleum analysis workflow is very much focused. It is integrating the physical attributes with a solid robust geological story which predicts reservoir presence, quality around province, depositional setting and diagenetic histories and it’s that work which was very much integral to protecting reservoir in Tortue which is excellent and one of the great things about Tortue is the deliverability of these wells is going to be enormous because of the reservoir quality and the reservoir effectiveness. And so the future exploration program of course we will bear in mind the attributes including AVEO that will be part of our risking and ranking the prospect but it is not - it is not the primary driver by any means and we will be probably drilling as many dense spots we drill, we drill bright spots as we go forward.

Al Stanton

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question. Our next question comes from the line of Al Stanton with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Can I just ask one follow-up then? In terms of source rocks did you encounter any potential source rocks in this well?

Brian F. Maxted

Management

Well, we’re still drilling and the source rocks that we predicted out here really are anything from lake Jurassic all the way through to the conventional more well-known source rocks in this area, Cenomanian–Turonian, and it would be no surprise to us if we didn’t have multiple source rocks working. And over the area that we have, multiple source rocks work in either in the gas window or in the oil window. That would be our expectation. I think, it’s important for the market, to understand, as I said earlier to John, that running room on this new petroleum system is huge and I would be shocked for it all to be gas, just as I would be shocked for it all to be oil. I think, what’s important here is the scale and if we do find oil we’re going to find big oil as we’ve shown. If we find gas, we’re going to find big gas. So, the market needs to keep an open mind. We don’t see this as a gas province. We see it as a province as a huge hydrocarbon province containing a lot of gas and hopefully over the course of the next year or two we will demonstrate it’s got big oil too.

Al Stanton

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question. Our next question comes from the line of Al Stanton with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

And you’ll just take with this one rig?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Again, I think it is early days. You know, what we need to do is ensure that we’ve got a credible appraisal program for a greater Tortue. We have a credible exploration program that fully delineates that area and then as Brian says, in the right way, we start an exploration program across the extent of Northern Mauritania to Northern Senegal, but we don’t get ahead of ourselves. This is all about insuring we do it in a disciplined way, we are efficient about integrating information. Then, look, it’s a great province to have at the moment. If we need to get a second rig, we could get a second rig and we can design the program to fit. So, there isn’t a better time actually to be preparing ourselves for that problem. So, today, we’re not suggesting that we’re going to go down that route, but as we start to open up the perspectivity, it’s something that that we’re going to consider.

Al Stanton

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question. Our next question comes from the line of Al Stanton with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Thank you.

Brian F. Maxted

Management

You’re welcome.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Thanks for taking the question guys. You mentioned the clarity on the fiscal terms in Mauritania. Can you quickly recap what they are and how they compare to what you have been getting in Ghana?

Thomas Chambers

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes, you know, Pavel, well, what I suggest we do is we can go through it in a broad sense. What I would say is, I think, Neil can talk you through it in more detail off-line. The most important part is that the terms in the PSCs did anticipate gas. Quite often, I think, in West Africa there has been an issue with the terms not being clear whereas, I think, both whereas, both with Mauritania and the Senegal PSCs we anticipated it. So, you know, the state participation is 10%. The cost recovery ceiling is large of the gas than it is for oil. That’s a sliding scale for the profit gas. The state reimbursement of the contractor is phased. And what I would do is rather than go through all the numbers on the cope Pavel, I think, it’s probably simpler if Neil goes through it with you in detail afterwards. Anyone else that wants to insure their modeling is accurate, they can do that.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes. No, quite clear enough. Then, can I ask a quick one about hedging. Given the extent of the Contango right now in the Brent Curve, are you looking at perhaps more for 2016 or subsequent years than you would have under normal circumstances?

Thomas P. Chambers

Management

Yes, Pavel, we just added 2 million barrels for 2017. So, you know, the Contango nature of the curve is not lost on us. So, you know, we like to be in the market on a continual basis. So, we saw a chance to actually hedge some in 2017. So, we took 2 million barrels and got a 72.50 swap and we actually sold and put bought back a call. So we’ve put some floors underneath it, and we also didn’t limit the upside. So yes the answer to your question is yes.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Okay. Appreciate it, guys.

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Great. Thanks, Pavel. Okay.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bob Morris with Citigroup. Please go ahead with your question.

Robert S. Morris

Analyst · Citigroup. Please go ahead with your question.

Thanks. And congratulations gentlemen on the Tortue discovery. Let me jump over to Jubliee, you mentioned that you had the gas rate up to 75 million cubic foot a day, what would then be the rate of oil after the FPSO given you’re taking 75 million of gas of it currently and where would you need to get that gas rate up to be able to take the ramp up the PSO capacity to 120,000 barrels a day?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Yes Bob, it’s couple of things, not quite as simple as that. Those two things that we really need to do. One is the clearly the by moving gas from the reservoir, we are ultimately lowering the CGR which is good allows us to process oil. So there is a sort of time function as we produce the gas, the allowed CGR and therefore over time you will see an improvement in the oil rate. Clearly what you also need to do is support the reservoir pressure by water injection, so that you could maintain that oil throughput. So today we have pushed up the oil rate, we’re not quite at the FPSO capacity, with a 75 million export rate, I think the way that you should think about it is that in the same half of the year, given that we expect that to be greater thermal power generation capacity at Aboadze, that if it turns up in time, that will allow us then in the back half of the year to drive the gas rates up. And then through time, you will see a lowering of the CGR, the pressure in the reservoir maintained by water injection and that’s when you’ll see the uplift in the oil rate. So there is a time dependence here, the two things don’t occur at the same point.

Robert S. Morris

Analyst · Citigroup. Please go ahead with your question.

So given at where is the oil rate currently and what did it ramp up to by year end?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Well, it is the oil rate today, production rate is over 110. So we’re sort of headed towards the 120 and then what we’re saying is that by the end of the year, we anticipate we have that production rate that appears capacity of 120. So we’re making progress, we’re headed in the right direction, the things remember of course is those are production rates that they at the FPSO, they don’t take account of shrinkage. Therefore the actual sales number is lower.

Robert S. Morris

Analyst · Citigroup. Please go ahead with your question.

Great. Thank you.

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

All right. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brendan Warn with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Brendan Warn

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Good morning, gentlemen. This Brendan Warn from BMO. Just a follow-up question, there is so much on the physical terms of as more just a relationship at the moment with Chevron related to Tortue, and can you just remind me what terms are right to be got and I appreciate its early days, appreciate you got a lot of follow-up drilling in potential in this region, having covered it since [indiscernible] days. Just your ability to form down, slow down. So what are the rights in terms for the government and should Chevron to backing at this point please.

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Okay well just sort of summarize that over beginning of the year, we announced Chevron forming into the Mauritania acreage and that forming in 30% by a disproportionate cost of the well which is on the Marsouin well. They have a right to back in post the discovery well on Tortue at the same 30%, and to try a disproportionate share of the well cost. And we don’t anticipate Chevron making that decision probably until the beginning of next year. So that’s the sort of broad overlay as we’ve described it. So that sort of leaves us with a 60% share in Mauritania and that go to our strategy. The point is that as we look at it today, this is an area as areas Brian described every time significant remaining prospective, we have the financial position to be able to drill it down and our view would be, that we want to fully delineate the scale and quality of Mauritania acreage position and that’s viewing that fundamental to our strategy. And clearly, as you we that, we believe we then have the option to make further determination at what level of equity, we would want to carry at a particularly at a development decision. So, what I say Brendan is, that this is a, again early days but we’re in a very strong position to have the ability to have a partner such as Chevron, it is great. We have a great working relationship and the two companies worked together very well. And as we forward we have the ability to the flex all level of equity spend and, as we see a commercial development becoming close to decision. So that’s why we see it today.

Brendan Warn

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Okay, thanks. Then just one follow-up, just in terms of LNG export terms, I understand you got gas fiscal terms for the out stream but just like a comment on terms of the value chain with the Mauritania as extents today?

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Yes no we said play today, we don’t have any negotiated terms with the government on what that explore would be, so obviously very early days. What we would note is that in Mauritania is clearly proximate to Europe. This could be a significant gas resource which is proximate to a major market and therefore I believe has differential position in the market because of geographic position. So yet today we haven’t done any work clearly around that but if you look at things that drive it as you know well is the scale, it’s the reservoir in terms of development cost and then it’s the proximate markets and I think from the preliminary views of the Tortue-1 well reserve, we have some positive signs there.

Brendan Warn

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Great, thank you.

Andrew G. Inglis

Management

Great, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen since there are no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Neal Shah for closing comments. End of Q&A

Neal Sahah

Management

Thank you, operator. We appreciate all of you joining us on the call today and your interest in Kosmos. If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to contact me. Thank you very much.